Flexible Schedules – How Are We Working Today?

What Are Working Time Models?

Working time models (or work schedule models) outline the contractual framework governing employees' working hours. Depending on the model chosen by a company, requirements on working hours and attendance can vary. 

These schedules are often formalized within employment contracts, and in today’s workplaces, both traditional and flexible hours exist side by side, whether across industries or within individual companies.

What Are Flexible Work Schedules?

Simply put, flexible schedules are agreements that enable employees to organize their work hours more freely within a set framework, tailoring them to personal needs. These models typically support a better work-life balance and are becoming standard in many sectors. 

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted what’s possible with employer support, making flexible hours a critical factor in attracting qualified talent, who increasingly value the freedom to decide how, when, and from where they work.

Benefits of Flexible Work Schedules

• Enhanced Work-Life Balance: Flexibility allows employees to align their work hours with personal needs, achieving a healthier balance between work and personal time, which can support family care and other responsibilities as situations demand.
• Increased Job Satisfaction and Motivation: Offering flexibility often makes employees feel more valued, fostering trust in management and enhancing job satisfaction and motivation.
• Boosted Productivity: Flexible schedules allow employees to adapt work hours to their energy levels and individual needs, promoting more effective and productive work.
• Greater Organizational Flexibility: Flexible schedules help organizations quickly adapt to market changes and make it easier to allocate resources on a project basis, allowing companies to respond more agilely to competitive pressures.

Overall, flexibility in schedule can lead to happier, more productive employees and make companies more agile. However, there are also some challenges that need careful consideration when implementing such models.

Drawbacks of Flexible Work Schedules 

• Coordination and Communication Challenges: When employees adopt a more flexible schedule, it can become harder to organize meetings and other team activities, potentially impacting teamwork and communication.
• Risk of Overwork: Maintaining a clear boundary between work and personal life can be challenging, especially in remote settings, where work-life boundaries often blur, leading to potential overwork.
• Difficulties with Oversight: Monitoring performance and ensuring compliance with scheduled hours can be challenging with flex work schedules. Implementing project time-recording systems can help companies accurately document work hours and provide a basis for performance assessments.
• Challenges in Complying with Labor Laws: Ensuring adherence to legal requirements on working hours, such as mandatory breaks and rest periods, is crucial. Time-tracking software can aid in monitoring these metrics in real-time and offer minute-accurate data from any location.

Despite these challenges, the trend toward flexibility in schedule remains strong. Surveys from recent years suggest that the traditional "9-to-5" office job is increasingly seen as outdated, especially by younger professionals.

Traditional Work Schedule Models – The "Starting Point"

Traditional work schedule models like full-time with fixed hours, shift work, and part-time work provide structured routines with clear guidelines, especially beneficial for companies requiring a high degree of predictability. In contrast, flexible schedules allow for more adaptability to individual needs and evolving job demands, a growing priority in today’s work environment. Below, we explore three classic work schedule models as examples: 

Full-Time with Fixed Hours (9-to-5)

The traditional full-time model with set hours is perhaps the most familiar. Employees work approximately eight hours daily, five days a week, with a fixed start and end time. Breaks are often predefined in this setup. 

This structure provides routine and simplifies project planning and teamwork, as deviations are minimal. However, it lacks flexibility for personal obligations and is losing popularity. Additionally, this model can lead to “clock-watching,” where employees simply sit through the hours rather than working efficiently. 

Traditional Shift Work

Shift work is prevalent in sectors like manufacturing, healthcare, and logistics. Employees work in designated shifts (early, late, or night) to ensure continuous operations. This model offers little flexibility as shifts are predetermined. 

The main advantage is operational security, crucial in essential and production-based fields. Efficiency is maximized by around-the-clock coverage, yet shift work can have health drawbacks, especially from night shifts, and complicate personal commitments, impacting work-life balance. 

Part-Time Work

Part-time work usually involves employees working around four hours a day or fewer. This model is popular among part-time staff, parents, or individuals with additional responsibilities. Classic part-time arrangements require fixed schedules, providing companies with high predictability. 

The main benefit is that it frees up time for family and personal life. Additionally, it enables companies to attract skilled workers who may not be seeking full-time roles, with lower compensation costs while completing necessary tasks. The drawbacks include limited flexibility for employees and, for companies, challenges in planning large projects that need long-term team involvement.

These traditional models will continue to play a role in the workplace. However, the flexible schedule concept is on the rise, bringing its unique characteristics and challenges. 

Flexible Work Schedules – Real-World Examples

Flexible work schedules allow organizations to cater better to employees' individual needs and circumstances while also enhancing productivity and employee satisfaction, improving a company's reputation both internally and externally. 

Here are some of the most popular models that companies use today to leverage these benefits: 

Trust-Based Working Hours

This flexible work model focuses on the timely completion of all tasks. As long as deliverables are met, employees are free to come and go as they please or even work remotely. The organization refrains from tracking exact work hours, promoting autonomy and personal accountability. 

Of course, rest breaks and downtime must still be observed. Following the 2022 ruling by the German Federal Labor Court mandating the tracking of working hours, companies need to assess which employees are suitable for trust-based hours and which groups require strict time tracking.

Functional Time

Functionally similar to the flextime concept, this model omits core hours, allowing for greater flexibility in planning. Here, the focus is on the operational needs of each department where employees work – meaning the tasks themselves are prioritized. 

It’s essential for team members to be able to cover for one another, with hours allocated freely as long as labor laws, collective agreements, and company policies are respected. 

Part-Time Work

Part-time work refers to employees working a reduced number of hours per week, achievable through fixed part-time contracts or job-sharing models. Part-time schedules let employees balance personal responsibilities, such as caregiving or child-rearing, to achieve a better work-life balance.

Phased Part-Time

This flexible model is especially relevant for employees nearing retirement age. Working hours are gradually reduced before retirement, giving employees a gradual transition out of the workforce. This model allows older employees to slowly decrease their workload, easing into retirement over time. 

Job-Sharing

A further model of work hour flexibility, job-sharing allows two or more individuals to share a single position, working on a part-time basis. This model suits part-time employees, enabling them to allocate their hours flexibly. However, it requires meticulous project planning to ensure workflows are maintained without disruption. 

Weekly / Monthly Hours

This flexible model focuses on total working hours over a week or month rather than daily hours. Employees can allocate their hours across individual days as needed, providing a high degree of flexibility in scheduling. They may work longer hours on some days and reduce them on others, depending on their personal requirements. 

Annual Working Hours

With annual working hours, the total required hours are distributed across the entire year, allowing employees to work seasonally as workloads fluctuate. 

For example, they might work more in the winter and less in the summer, achieving the annual target hours by year-end. This flexible schedule is ideal for industries with seasonal demands, though unforeseen changes might still lead to overtime. 

Lifetime Working Hours

Lifetime working hours are a popular flexible schedule that enables employees to save up time over the years, often with the goal of taking extended leave, like a sabbatical. Accumulated overtime is stored in a time account, allowing employees to later take extended breaks. The arrangement must be documented, ensuring the employment relationship continues, and compensation is drawn from the saved hours during time off. 

Unlimited Time Off

In theory, employees have the freedom to take as many days off as they want, with no set cap. This model relies heavily on mutual trust between employees and employers, as well as a strong sense of responsibility on the employees’ part. It aims to enhance motivation, promote productivity, and support a healthy work-life balance. Absence management for this model can be efficiently managed with flexible job schedule software. 

Remote Work

Remote work has become an established flexible schedule option, where employees split their time between the office and other locations, such as home or coworking spaces. This model supports a work-life balance and is particularly attractive to commuters and those with caregiving duties. Work is performed independently of time and place, reducing the need for daily commuting. 

Flextime

Flextime offers employees a set core working period within which they can flexibly arrange their start and end times. They have the autonomy to design their workday as long as they meet the required hours, enabling greater flexibility in schedule and personal planning.

Four-Day Work Week

Employees work four days each week, either extending their daily hours or reducing their total weekly hours. This model provides an extra day off, often increasing overall well-being and productivity. A four-day week gives employees additional time to recharge, while organizations maintain productivity. 

9/80 Work Model

In this model, employees work nine days over a two-week period instead of ten. They work longer hours on most days and receive every other Friday off. Similar to the four-day work week, this model offers extra free time without compromising productivity, making it suitable for industries that require continuous on-site presence.

Given the variety of work schedules available, reliable and precise time tracking is essential for all employees, regardless of the model chosen. With our GFOS App, you and your team can easily track working hours, maintaining visibility and compliance across all flexible and traditional schedules.

The Future of Flexible Schedules – A Necessary Shift

It’s increasingly evident that companies adapting to employees' needs become not only more attractive employers but also benefit from a direct increase in employee performance. Flexibility in scheduling isn't merely a response to employee demands; it's a productivity strategy that strengthens long-term company performance.

Highlighting this perspective, let’s look at some recent studies and research in this field:

• Full-Time Work as a Barrier for Talent: Many capable professionals are still structurally limited in participating flexibly in the workforce. The Hans Böckler Foundation's 2024 report quotes labor law expert Johanna Wenckebach, who stated that the "norm of extended full-time work" leads to "proven discrimination and excludes people from employment."
• Flexible Schedules Are Worth It: In a WSI survey of nearly 2,600 full-time employees, 81% said they could envision a four-day work week for themselves. For 73%, this was only an option with full salary compensation – a scenario that researchers believe could also make economic sense for companies. 
• Overtime Remains Commonplace: According to a DESTATIS press release, around 22% of all overtime in Germany in 2021 went unpaid or uncompensated. While percentages vary across industries, consistently high workloads are damaging to health in the long term.
• COVID-19 as a Catalyst for Change: The pandemic demonstrated how quickly flexible job schedules could be incorporated into daily routines. The International Labour Organization (ILO) study, "Working Time and Work-Life Balance Around the World," explored how global work hours changed due to COVID-19 and how different schedules affect employees' work-life balance. 

The future workplace – embodying the principles of "New Work" – will be shaped by individuality, purpose, and flexibility in schedule. Companies recognizing this early on will stand a greater chance of thriving in the marketplace.